Victor Perez arrived at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic with a spring in his step after landing his maiden Rolex Series title just a few days ago - but the Frenchman is taking nothing for granted as he bids to make it two in a row.
Perez finished top of the leaderboard at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on Sunday after kicking off 2023 the week before at the Hero Cup.
The 30-year-old three-time DP World Tour winner said: "It feels fantastic to sit here, a week into the season for me personally because I haven't played in December.
"It couldn't have been a better start. After the Hero Cup, I was feeling pretty good with my game, but to be able to back it up in a 72-hole tournament is a completely different story and I was just really happy to carry on that form and eventually get the victory."
Perez admitted he had to plan his approach to this week carefully due to the quick turnaround before he tees off at Emirates Golf Club.
He said: "The balance is always difficult because you know how hard it is to win.
"You want to enjoy your performance. You want to enjoy and celebrate with your team but you also know that the next event is equally as big as the one you played.
"So you want (to be) doing things in a certain order that have allowed you to get the best chance of winning and you want to try to replicate that the best you can the following week, which is never easy."
Perez's recent fine form - he also took 3.5 points from four matches at the Hero Cup as Continental Europe beat Great Britain and Ireland - has been played out in front of Ryder Cup Captain Luke Donald.
Perez is now riding high in standings to make the team for Rome later this year and is determined to erase the disappointment of missing out on Whistling Straits two years ago.
He said: "I think everybody wants to qualify. Everybody wants to make the team. Everybody wants to contribute in winning.
"But I try to look at it more as a little bit, a holistic view as it's part of your journey if the chips ended up falling that way, and it goes for what it is.
"I think I've learned that the only thing that matters in making the team is you just need to be in the points the week before.
"I think I was in the points for the longest time and ended up not being in the points at the end which was obviously disappointing, because you talk about it for so long and I've been asked those questions about the Ryder Cup for, you know, the entire extended Covid period.
"Because through 2020, I was obviously in very good shape to make it for the end of the year and it was delayed a year, but the questions were still the same and you get used to being in that, you know, 'oh, how would it feel to be the blah, blah, blah, and how would it feel to do this and that?'.
"So I think you can take a lot of lessons from that. So yeah, I'm excited for the next one. It's as good a start as I could have hoped."
